Friday, March 29, 2013

Virgin Atlantic Airlines was going around New York City at the beginning of this week, promoting their new ad, FITFOO which stands for Flying in the Face of Ordinary.

This was my first example of Real Time marketing. They were tweeting from (@VAAintheUSA) with their locations while also reaching out to celebs and different companies to raise more awareness of FITFOO.

I am just a FunSized girl and Virgin Atlantic had no issue with coming to the steps of the main United States Post Office on 8th Ave to deliver their FITFOO Fun to me! I didn't know what to expect but to see a red Mini Cooper with the Virgin Atlantic logo!

To my surprise, two lovely Virgin Atlantic stewardesses greeted me with a rather large container of Baked By Melissa cupcakes! I was stunned and so grateful! A photographer came along for the ride, who took a ton of pictures that will be on their Facebook page. Wednesday was their last day of FITFOO fun in NYC, they were off to London that evening.

I've never been on a Virgin Atlantic flight but after this promotion that they had, I've learned more about their airlines and I am definitely more inclined now to look into booking one of their flights!

Great job VAAintheUSA and thanks again!

Have you taken a flight on Virgin Atlantic? What was your experience like? Tell me about it!

The first thing you want to do is place the ground turkey meat in a stove-top pan with a little bit of olive oil in it. Sprinkle some salt and pepper onto the meat as it starts to cook. Medium to light heat is good. While it is cooking drizzle some of balsamic vinegar on the meat and continue to mix. As the meat is on the stove you want to set your oven to about 350 degrees.

While the meat is cooking cut up some onion, I did about two slices and then cut it into small pieces, add that into the ground turkey meat on the stove. Along with that, add in some spinach. Spinach shrinks when you cook it so you definitely want to add plenty into the mixture.

The last ingredient to add is some craisins! If you'd like, depending on how much you enjoy balsamic vinegar, drizzle it into the mixture once last time and mix it around so the craisins get some of the flavor as well.

As the mixture is cooking, you should cut and prepare the bell peppers. I used one green and one red pepper and I cut them in half. I placed them in a glass baking dish. It is important that you put a small layer of water on the bottom of the dish so that the peppers don't burn when they are in the oven.

At this point, the meat mixture should be full cooked, your oven is preheated and it is time to add the meat mixture into the pepper. Use a spoon and be careful and really push the mixture deep into the pepper.

Once the meat is stuffed into the bell peppers, the last step is place the mozzarella cheese on top of the peppers. Now that it's all done, time to go into the oven to bake until the cheese is golden!

If you noticed while sharing my recipe with you, I did not give you any measurements... well, that's because I didn't use any. I just "eye-balled" it! It really depends upon your personal preference. Cooking is about being creative and having fun and that's all I was doing and I'm sure you can do the same thing!

It was absolutely delicious, the balsamic vinegar really added a nice flavor to the peppers and meat. This is definitely a recipe I will use again.

Have you made stuffed bell peppers? What did you put inside of them? Let me know!

Monday, March 25, 2013

For this week, I painted my paws a bit Lady Gaga-esque! Most people usually do this technique with tape. However, the last time I did a tape manicure, the tape let me down, so I used my handy-dandy toothpick to create the triangles. It was a difficult task but I did it! You definitely need to have a steady hand to accomplish this!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

I spent the first day of Spring indulging in Chinatown Restaurant Week in New York City! There are a ton of restaurants to choose from, each with a variety of options on their prix-fixed menus. Some are only for lunch and some only for dinner so make sure you check out all the options on their website and read the fine print too! Each prix-fixed menu is $20.13 a person!

I went to H.K. Wonton! We thought it was the best deal with the best options we would enjoy choosing from. They had two different "packages" or menus put together for restaurant week. So I got one and my company got the other so we were able to share and get different dishes. We ended up with so much food! We definitely got our money's worth.

Just take a look:

Everything was absolutely delicious! The staff was very nice and accommodating! I would definitely go back here even when restaurant week is not going on.

Chinatown Restaurant Week is going on now until March 31st so hurry and pick your restaurant! They also have contests going on so make sure to check out their website for more details.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Well, that goal of trying a new recipe every week disappeared for a little bit but I'm bringing it back with a new FunSized Homemade Pizza recipe!

As I've said previously, making pizza at home is much healthier than buying it from your favorite local Italian place but it's just as good!

Once the sauce is down on the dough, that is when the creativity begins! I topped this pizza with spinach, small sliced pieces of red onion, 2 plum tomatoes cut in small pieces, and then sprinkled with some fresh minced garlic, and oregano. After all those toppings were on, I layered on two bags off mozzarella shredded pizza cheese.

Just look at how delicious this looks!

And just after 40 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees it was ready to eat!

It was super yummy! Just remember to let it cool for a few minutes prior to eating!

Have you made any homemade pizza yet? Let me know what toppings you used!